Queekish

While Skaven have a native language called Queekish, they fluently speak the Manthing tongue so as to better strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. The Skaven have made a few improvements to the Manthing language showing their superiority over their weak and stupid enemies. These changes are as follows.

Skaven chatter a lot. In the Manthing tongue they will, in their excitement, repeat words for emphasis. Ex. Die-Die Manthing!! Run-Run!! Greetings-Greetings! Skuttle Quick-Quick!!!
Skaven view themselves as superior to all other races. They refer to civilized races as Manthing, Dwarfthing, Elfthing, etc.
Skaven in their political cesspool have mastered flattery. When asking a favor, in fear of being punished, or other dealings where they may need your cooperation they will shower you with compliments such as "Most prestigious of prestigious Lords" or "Greatest of vile vermin."
Skaven have mastered mud-slinging. When enticing someone to work against another Skaven or another Clan they will detract from their intended target with phrases like "That backstabbing coward of Clan Skryre, the Horned One chew-chew his intestines!!"
Few female Skaven escape the breeding warrens of Skavenblight. Skaven refer to all females as breeders. They have no other word for the female gender.
When Skaven are excited they tend to chatter uncontrollably: Neek-Neek.
When Skaven are afraid they make high pitched whining sounds: Eeek-Eeek!!!
Although not a part of the spoken language, Skaven tend to touch what ever they are talking to.

Skaven Runes

Introduction

Few humans have ever ventured into Skavenblight, and fewer still have ventured out. For many decades, despite the appearance of skaven runic symbols on battlefields across the old world, it was believed that the Skaven lacked a written language of their own. In support of this theory, it was pointed out that Skaven battle standards are often written in the common tongue, bearing such epitaphs as "we shall inherit" and "wither and decay." However, we now know that the Skaven use the common tongue solely for their opponent's benefit - in an attempt to break enemy morale. Onlly recently, through the interrogation of human cultists of the Horned Rat, and careful study of a few captured tattered pages of the "Liber Boubonicus" have the mysteries of the Skaven written language begun to unravel.

The Skaven alphabet contains 19 letters. There is no hard and fast rule concerning whether material is written from left to right, right to left or up and down.

Each of the 19 letters takes the form of a runic symbol. These symbols, when appearing alone, have a distinct meaning within Skaven society. In addition, however, the word or phrase associated with each symbol also represents a certain sound in the Skaven alphabet. For example, the skaven symbol for the word "warpstone" may appear alone, and often does. However when it appears with a group of other symbols it may also represent the "Wa" sound, or the letter "W".

In addition to their 19 letters, the Skaven alphabet contains 7 vowels. The vowels are often omitted in informal writing, as the Skaven vocabulary appears to be so limited as to have little need of them. Thus, a word like "water" will usually appear using the runic symbols for "W", "T" and "R" only.

Finally, the Skaven use a single punctuation symbol in their writings: the double scratch mark, or "//" symbol. When this symbol appears after a word, the word is always pronounced in a stuttering fashion, such as "Die-die" or "Hate-hate". No other punctuation is known to exist in the Skaven written language. It is believed that the question mark is not used because written requests are of no importance in Skaven society. No Skaven would ever respond to a request such as "where is the warpstone kept." Such information would only be given in person, either to a more powerful Skaven, or extracted by his assassins.

The Interactive Skaven Alphabet

Select a letter of the alphabet to learn about its Skaven Runic equivalent:

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Queekish True Type Font

The Skaven True Type Font is modeled after this alphabet and is a useful tool for planning a text in Queekish.